If You Only Knew
by bosswoman88
Summary: Spring of 99, Rayna is on tour and far from home when miss Maddie Conrad decided to make her appearance in the world... what if Deacon was there when she was born after all? One shot.


Spring of 99

 **Deacon**

Deacon watches as Rayna carefully lowers herself onto the sofa across from him and gives a relieved sigh. The bus is rolling again. Three more shows in San Diego and L.A, and they will head back to Nashville. It isn't safe for her to fly anymore, so a nice long bus trip is the only option.

"I shouldn't have sat on this couch," she murmurs. "You better not go far. I'm gonna need some help getting back off it."

"Ray, I don't know why you don't just reschedule these last three shows and we can head home early," he says, eyeing her up. She is extremely pregnant, extremely moody, and it is obvious she is growing more miserable by the day. She did most of the show tonight sitting on a stool. He had been standing next to her watching her silently have a fit when a roadie carried it out at his request.

 _Rayna,_ he said out of mic range. _Sit on the goddamn stool or I will carry you off this stage myself_.

He still thinks she's beautiful, even with that belly in front of her. Just one more time he wants relive what it is like to wake up in the morning wrapped in the blankets skin against skin. They had always slept the same way. Force of habit, maybe, after 11 years on tiny buses. His front to her back, shed tuck in her knees and fit right in the space next to him. He wonders what it would be like to sleep with their child between them, to reach out and put his hand against the curve of her stomach and feel the life there. He wonders if she sleeps that way with her husband.

She can complain all she wants but even the reporters and paparazzi that called her the Queen of Country and follow her everywhere now like to point out how well pregnancy agrees with her. They are anxiously awaiting the day the throne to country music's newest heir arrives. She'd perhaps been a little too thin before anyway, and now there is a softness to her face, a new shine to her in general. She is looking forward to becoming a mama, and it shows.

Being on tour with Rayna is nothing new. After all, he has been doing it off and on for the better part of 11 years. But some days he still doesn't know what the hell he'd been thinking, when she'd come to him six months ago after he'd been fresh out of a fourth short lived stint in rehab. _I need you,_ she said standing on the front steps of his house. _In my band_ , quick to add. _I need you in my band, Deacon. My music doesn't work without you._

 _And why the hell did she think he'd ever agreed to that. He knew she was seeing that politician's pretty boy son Teddy Conrad now, after rehab #3 had failed and she'd given him back his engagement ring. It made him want a drink just thinking about it. The only thing that ever got him through all these miserable rehab facilities they kept shoving him in was knowing she'd be there when he got out._

And like the fool he was, never able to say no to her, he had found himself sleeping on a tour bus with her a week later as they rolled out of town, hoping somehow he could find a way to fix things.

Because his life didn't work without Rayna Jaymes in it somewhere.

It wasn't until after they'd been on the road for a few weeks and he saw her not for the first time refuse a glass of champagne she would have downed in one gulp otherwise, that it hit him, and he confronted her after a show in Tulsa.

She cried, but she didn't deny it. She was pregnant. Her and Teddy would be married in a month when the tour took a week long break.

He didn't ask if it was his. The shame in her eyes was enough of an answer.

That night in Tulsa had been the closest he'd come to drinking since rehab. He didn't. But the itch is there, and he is fighting it every day now, watching her get bigger and bigger with that baby that is Teddy's and not his. Some nights he lays in his bunk while she sleeps in the suite they used to share on every tour before, and he plays the "what if" game with himself to keep his mind off needing a drink. He knows it's just a matter of time. They tell you all the signs in rehab, when to call your sponsor. The restlessness. The inability to sleep. It's a demon, this addiction. Chasing him everywhere like the fire of hell is about to burn his heels.

 _What if its mine?_ he thinks sometimes, even though he knows it's not possible. He was in rehab trying to get sober for her while she was out being romanced by the mayor's son. _Maybe I could figure it out. This dad thing._ Not that he'd ever had a very good example. His own father was as mean of a drunk as god had ever dared to mistakenly put on this earth.

 _What if she just doesn't marry Teddy?_ He played that game for awhile too, the idea of raising someone else's child as his own. Maybe he could love it, that baby, just because it is Rayna's. But he knows that will never happen. Teddy's family has money, and they have power. He has nothing but a bunch of guitars and a bad public record. He stopped playing that "what if" game when she flew home to Nashville for a week break on the tour and came back with a wedding band on her finger, and her husband in tow to join her on tour that week since they didn't have time for a honeymoon.

Some days he doesn't know what will kill him first, wanting a drink so bad, wanting her, or wanting to rub the smug look off Teddy Conrad's face with his fist every time he saw him.

"Because," Rayna says now, tiredly kicking off the heels she refuses to trade for flats and rubbing her side. "My due date isn't for three weeks. This baby isn't going anywhere. Even though I could swear tonight she was trying to kick her way out during that last song."

Rayna is having a girl. They always refer to the baby as "she" now.

He smirks. "She'll come out singing, I bet. Just like her mama."

It still hurts, and he knows it will always hurt. Not a day goes by that it has lessened by a millimeter. She didn't wait. And really, why should she.

He hasn't given her much to wait for. And Teddy Conrad has it all.

###################################

 **Rayna**

Rayna stands in front of the giant mirror of the penthouse bathroom suite, examining her sideways reflection in the old -tshirt and shorts she wears to bed. She doesn't know how this baby could possibly get any bigger. She hasn't seen her own feet in weeks, every single part of her hurts, and eventually this child is going to have to come _out_ somehow, and she doesn't even want to think about that inevitable fact.

One night off in San Diego, and a sold out show tomorrow, and they'll be on the road again. Some of the crew had been talking earlier about taking in a late movie and dinner after they'd rolled into town, but not so much for her. She is exhausted. The show last night had been too much, and she damn well knows it, even though she is never planning on admitting out loud that Deacon is probably right, she needs to be heading for Tennessee, and her familiar doctor. She should be at home with her husband getting ready for this baby. Not letting him decorate the nursery alone and unpack the baby clothes she buys and has shipped home.

She smooths the shirt over her stomach, and the baby kicks under her hand. It's one of Deacon's shirts that he gave her a few weeks ago when he found her weeping on the bus late at night because she had nothing to sleep in, and nothing that fit. It barely fits now.

The problem is that Deacon being right isn't the only thing she doesn't want to admit. When this tour ends, everything will be different. She will go back to Nashville and make a life with her husband and this baby that they both damn well know isn't Teddy's. Sure, by this time next year she'll be back out on the road, with baby in tow. With Deacon once again standing behind her on the stage.

But never again will it be the same.

Because she didn't wait.

She looks at her reflection in the mirror, huge with this child, and the green eyes that stare back at her call her a fraud. The truth is, she doesn't want to go home.

What kind of mother will she be if her child's life starts out as a lie?

Tears run down Rayna's face, and the baby kicks hard, as if she knows. Mama has cried herself every night to sleep for months, it is nothing new.

"Rayna?" The voice echoes through the rooms of the large suite. "Are you here? Just came to check on ya."

She quickly swipes at the tears on her cheeks but it's too late. Deacon has stepped into the bathroom and his reflection appears in the mirror behind her. Cautious. His forehead crinkling up, worried. He's always checking up on her lately. It would be endearing if it didn't _hurt_ so damn much, knowing how much he cared.

"Hey. You feeling okay? I know you said you were fine, but…"

She wants to say yes, but the words don't come, and she shakes her head.

With a sigh, he gently presses a hand into the small of her back and leads her out of the bathroom and to the king size bed.

She sits on the edge of the bed and he kneels in front of her, swiping at her tears. "Why don't you just get some sleep, Ray. I knew you were wearing yourself out. Want me to get you some ginger ale? Order some soup from room service, maybe?

"That'd be nice," she murmurs.

It arrives a little while later, and he sets the tray on the table next to the bed, making sure she's got the remote and the phone nearby and everything she needs. It should make it better somehow but it just makes it worse. She is miserable, and tired, and there is another man's ring on her finger instead of the one she gave back to him the morning after they made this baby. She knows it's the right thing to do, marry Teddy and letting him be the father. Deacon is still unstable, after all. It lingers in his eyes. But in moments like this, she misses him and the way they were so much she swears it's like her heart is being ripped out all over again.

"Maybe I should call some body to sit with you," he says, with genuine concern in his eyes. "You're not having pains or anything?"

She shakes her head tiredly.

"Ray, I don't want to leave you alone."

"Then stay," she whispers.

His face hesitates, but there's so much longing in his eyes, that she knows he will, just because she asked him to. Deacon loves her. He has never stopped. She never doubts this for a second.

She is the one that married someone else.

It's wrong. It's so wrong, and they both know it, but he kicks off his boots and climbs into bed next to her anyway. It's a giant king sized bed, but it doesn't matter. They sleep just like they used to, and she is comforted easily into sleep in that spot next to him, the strength of his chest against her back and his legs against hers. She still fits there, baby bump and all. And they both know somehow this will be the last time they ever do this. She is going home to become a mama. Make a life with someone else. Neither one of them belong to him.

She sleeps. He doesn't for a long time.

Sometimes in the middle of the night Rayna awakens to sharp pains in her belly. Somehow Deacon's hand has found its way across her middle. She doesn't dare move, biting her tongue, the tears in her eyes starting again and she watches the clock with the red hands on it on the table across the room. She waits until another pain hits. 10 minutes.

She doesn't sleep the rest of the night. Watching the clock. Until they are seven…. Then five minutes apart. When the sun comes up, the pains are five minutes apart, and she is struggling to remember that damn breathing technique she learned in the one Lamaze class her and Teddy managed to make it to.

Gently she pushes Deacons hand away and struggles to stand up and head for the bathroom.

When she comes out, he is awake, sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing his eyes. Looking guilty as hell.

She doesn't have time to worry about that, as she leans in the bathroom doorway, one hand clutched against her stomach.

"I need to go to the hospital," she says, forcing each word.

"What?" He is suddenly wide awake, and on his feet.

"I'm in labor, Deacon. We need to go. Now. Call the front desk and get a cab please. And hurry."

She felt strangely calmer than she had in days. She was two thousand miles from home, her husband, and everything you were supposed to have when you had a baby.

And at that moment, she didn't care. All she cared about was that the guy on the phone with the hotel operator demanding a cab and a police escort was also holding her hand as she struggled through another pain.

 _Breathe, Rayna,_ she told herself again. _Just breathe_.

########################################

 **Deacon**

They're halfway to the hospital in a cab with sirens blaring behind them, thanks to hotel security, when Deacon realizes they called Bucky but they never called Teddy.

Rayna doesn't seem too concerned. "Bucky will do it."

At the hospital they are met with a team waiting with a wheelchair, taken to a private suite, and he hangs back in the corner as they do all kinds of things to her he really has no desire to watch, wondering what the hell he's supposed to do now. Sit in the hall? He doesn't even know how many times he tells the damn doctors and nurses he isn't her husband, until finally he just gives up.

One of the nurses shoves a gown at him, and he opens his mouth once again to protest, but Rayna grabs his hand as he tries to make an escape. "Don't you dare leave me alone. You owe me."

He's got a little bit of a sick feeling at those words, because truthfully, he does. Rayna has sat by his hospital bed dozens of times while they pumped booze and pills out of his stomach, which he laid there unconscious, and sometimes she honestly had no idea whether or not he'd live or die.

He owes her his life.

"Okay," he says softly as her face twists up in pain. "I'll stay here til Teddy gets here."

A little while later, a nurse tells him someone is in the hallway wanting to talk to him, and he reluctantly kisses her sweaty forehead and steps outside, but it isn't Teddy as he expected. It's Bucky.

Bucky calls him out in the hallway at one point, to tell him Teddy's getting on a flight to California right now, but it will be a couple hours before he arrives.

"Buck, you need to tell that plane to fly a little faster. I don't think she's gonna make it that long."

Bucky gives him kind of an odd look. "Well then you'll stay with her, right?"

"Yeah," he says with a sigh. "I'll stay."

He walks back into the room just in time to hear the doctor ask how long she's been in labor. "Since last night," Rayna says.

Last night. She had never woken him.

More than that, she'd waited to call Teddy until it was way too late, knowing full well he would never make it.

He stared at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Rayna just looked away. It isn't the only thing she hasn't told him.

 _Oh Deacon, if only you knew_.

####################################

 **Rayna**

She keeps telling them she doesn't want drugs. It's not good for the baby. But the waves of pain are getting worse and worse to overcome, never ending now, unbearable.

"Can't you give her something?" Deacon demands the nurses.

Finally, she relents and they give her something just to take the edge off, but it makes her woozy, and she starts to cry.

"You're almost ready to push," the doctor says, sounding in her opinion, way too damn cheerful. She wants to kick that smile right off his face. In fact, she wants to kick every single person out of this room right now so they let her have this baby without bothering her. Except him. He can stay.

And he's there next to her the whole time, holding her hand, brushing the hair off her face. _The right man_ , she thinks in her slightly woozy condition. _This is how it's supposed to be._ "I just want this to be over. It hurts so bad."

"It's almost over, darlin." he promises, smoothing her sweaty hair back from her face.

"I'm sorry Deacon. I'm so sorry. I didn't wait. I should have waited. They told me it was the right thing, and…"

"Hey now," he says softly. "You got a real important job to do right now. We're not gonna worry about any of that.

Everything suddenly goes into faster motion after that, and she grips his hand so hard as she pushes that she knows he will probably have broken fingers tomorrow.

 _Come on, sweetie. She's almost here._

 _Rayna, push!_

It isn't long before she drops her head back in relief, and a loud wail fills the room as new life is breathed into the world.

She's just given birth to a pink, wailing, perfectly healthy 8 lb baby girl.

And as Deacon had predicted, she certainly came into the world singing.

At the moment Madeline Jade Conrad makes her entrance, Teddy Conrad is somewhere over Colorado.

#################################

 **Deacon**

He can't help the tears that run down his own face as he watches them put that tiny baby girl on her chest and she sobs in both relief and happiness, and he can see that as much as it hurt, she would have done it again in a second.

"Madeline," Rayna says softly. "We'll call her Maddie."

"You did good, Ray," he says, leaning over to kiss her forehead. "You did so good."

After a bit they take the baby from her, just for a little while to check her over and get her wrapped up nice and tight while he hangs back. Rayna is exhausted. As much as she wants her baby, he can see she just wants to sleep and her eyes are already drifting off as they fix her up. He should go, he thinks. This isn't his place, as much as he wants it to be. And it hurts, a sweet, aching kind of hurt that he doesn't know if like some many other things he will ever get over.

And just like that without warning, the nurse hands him the tiny blanket-wrapped bundle. "Here you go, Daddy."

"But I'm not…" he starts to say for the millionth time. The nurse is already tending to Rayna though, not paying attention.

He stands there while the room bustles around him, and everyone else seems to disappear as that tiny new face looks up at him with dark eyes. And he knows what he should have known all along. It doesn't make any sense, when it would have happened, because he doesn't remember and he doesn't know why Rayna would break what was left of his heart by not telling him. He doesn't know how. But he can feel it with every fiber of his being, more sure than he's ever felt anything. The last time he had felt this, he walked into the Bluebird cafe and fell in love with the girl on the stage.

That's _his_ baby. His flesh and blood. His newborn daughter in his own arms.

A memory comes back to him, one he's blocked out for no good reason other than maybe the fact that it hurts like hell to think about how bad he screwed up. The cabin….that ring on her finger….this baby appearing three weeks earlier than she was supposed to may have been the biggest indication of all.

An ache starts in his chest that burns like wildfire, and he sinks into the chair with sweet Maddie in his arms. Rayna is already dozing off, too tired to notice his broken eyes, so he holds the baby for awhile as the room quiets a little, people stop running in and out, and they turn the lights softer so Rayna can sleep for.

And he just sits there, and holds her, and studies her tiny face, the little hand that wraps around his finger. "Hey you," he says softly, tears burning his eyes. "Some day you and me, we're gonna figure this out. But for now, you got someone who is gonna take care of you and your mama. He'll be a good daddy to you. The kind you deserve."

He gets it, as much as he doesn't want to, why Rayna didn't tell him, why she chose a settled, reliable man like Teddy Conrad over him. She would have done anything for this little girl.

And in that moment, so would he.

############################

 **Teddy**

He runs through the hospital at full speed. He's been on full speed for four hours now, since Bucky called and told him Rayna was in labor. In San Diego.

Rayna had insisted that she was finishing this tour before the baby came, and it had been his fear all along, that he'd miss the birth, that all their carefully constructed plans would be ruined. This isn't his only fear. They've only been married about six months now, and Rayna has been on tour for a majority of that. With Deacon. He trusts her. It's Deacon Claybourne and his way of convincing Rayna to do anything that he doesn't trust worth a damn.

The words of their wedding night come back to haunt him as he races through the halls. _I know this is the right thing to do, Teddy. This baby needs a father. And Deacon…he might be sober right now, but I can see it in his eyes. He's not healed. I don't know if he ever will be."_ They've agreed to take a paternity test after the baby is born but they both know it's pointless. There is almost no chance that the baby girl she is carrying is anybody's except Deacons.

At the door of Rayna's hospital room, Teddy stops in his tracks, and defeat overtakes him as he walks in and sees Deacon standing there with the baby in his arms.

He rises, and their eyes meet.

And Teddy realizes he knows. A cold fear grips him, and immediately his defenses go up. It's what he has worried about the most. That a father's instinct is stronger than any truth that went untold, or that Rayna will not be able to handle not telling him as she promised.

But he is surprised when Deacon walks forward and reluctantly hands over his daughter.

Teddy looks down at the baby girl they've already decided to name Madeline, and instantly falls in love with her. Such a sweet innocent little face. He wants to give her everything, make sure she has the best childhood any little girl could ever imagined, make sure she knows how much she is loved every day. "She's beautiful."

"She is," Deacon clears his throat. "Kinda easy to fall in love with that one."

He glances at Rayna, asleep in the bed with a peaceful smile on her face. _That one too._

"Thanks for being here. For them," Teddy said quietly, a look of understanding passing between the two of them. Rayna didn't tell him. She kept her promise. Deacon is making this choice on his own.

"You too," Deacon says. And then he forces his feet to move, to walk out the door, and walk away.

########################################

 **Deacon**

Cole stands next to him as he stands outside the rehab facility in Phoenix. Far away from San Diego. Far away from Nashville. Rayna and her husband and their new baby girl are on a plane home to Nashville today.

He's not going home.

The last two days have been hell on the heart, for sure. He didn't know how long he'd walked after he left the hospital until he found a broken down corner bar with light up signs in the windows and girls whose names didn't matter.

He'd sat there for a hell of a long time that afternoon with a glass of whiskey in front of him.

 _You gonna drink that or stare at it all night?_ The bartender asked.

It had taken all the strength in the world to push it away. He still wanted it. Badly. But he was done failing the people he loved. And he was tired of wavering on that ledge.

So he'd walked out of the bar and called Coleman instead.

 _I need help, Cole._

 _Deacon, you drinking?_

 _Not yet. But if I don't do something, I'm gonna be._

And now here they were.

"I'm glad you called," Cole says in his no nonsense way. "This is a better place for you, I think. Far away from…everything that sets you off." He'd been surprised when Deacon called. Usually it was the other way around, Rayna dragging him kicking and screaming all the way, court appointed rehab…this is the first time Deacon has made the choice on his own.

Cole wonders if maybe that was the problem all along. He just didn't want it bad enough.

"It's gonna work this time," Deacon says quietly.

"I hope so."

"Either it's going to work," he says, with a different kind of determination in his eyes. Or its gonna kill me once and for all. I need it to work this time, Cole. For her."

"Which her are we talking about?" Cole asks, but gets no response. He has long suspected since Rayna announced to the world that she was pregnant, that it was probably Deacon's kid. The news she'd up and married Teddy Conrad had been a shock.

Deacon doesn't answer, just stands there for a long time, thinking about that tiny hand wrapped around his finger, and that first cry. He will carry that memory with him every second of every day. Some day his daughter will grow up and ask him, _where were you in the spring of 99?_ And he thanks god above that he'll be able to give her the best answer possible. _Watching you being born, of course. I remember every second. You came out singing. And I loved you instantly._

With a deep breath, he opens the glass door and walks inside.

This time, it will work.


End file.
